COSAŞU, RADU

COSAŞU, RADU (Oscar Rohrlich; 1930– ), Romanian writer and journalist. Cosaşu drew attention with his novels A înţelege sau nu ("To Understand or Not," 1965), surveying Romanian society from the bourgeoisie to the Communists immediately after the Nazi defeat, and Maimuţele personale ("Private Monkeys," 1968), which deals with illusion and reality. From the early 1980s, he was recognized as one of the Romania's most important novelists. One of his most favorite themes is the decline of Communist and utopian illusions, especially among Jewish families, as in Meseria de nuvelist ("Novelist by Profession," 1980. and Supravieţuirile ("Surviving," 3 vols., 2002–5). The milieu of Romanian Jews who settled in Israel is described with a sympathetic irony in Mătuşile din Tel Aviv ("The Aunts from Tel Aviv," 1993). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Mirodan, Dicţionar neconvenţional al scriitorilor evrei de limbă română, 1 (1986), 396–409; Dicţionarul general al literaturii române, 2 (2004), 393–95. (Leon Volovici (2nd ed.)